1960’s Afghanistan Was Very Different Before The Taliban

When you think of Afghanistan, you probably don't think of short skirts, nice cars and liberal lifestyles, but just as Iran looked very different in the 1970s, these fascinating pictures show that Afghanistan in the 1960s was a very different country than the one that exists today.

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The pictures were taken by American university professor Dr. Bill Podlich, who in 1967 took a two-year leave of absence to work for UNESCO in Afghanistan. He served as the Expert of Principles of Education at the Higher Teachers College in Kabul, and during this time he took many photographs of life as it was back then. The Soviets invaded only a decade later and Afghanistan was pulled into war, and following Taliban rule and the US invasion in 2001, the country now bears little resemblance to the peaceful and prosperous nation that you can see in these pictures below.

Sadly, that truth is hidden from Americans; how Brzezinski and Carter supported extreme Anti-Russian elements, which became Taliban, how the same "gentlemen" more or less forced The Soviet Union into a reluctant war in Afghanistan (which had the wanted effect of toppling the Soviet Union) Brzezinski said they wanted "to draw the Russian's into the Afghan trap". No, nobody talks of this anymore, just as nobody talks of Cuba before the revolution, the conditions for ordinary Cubans, and how the Trade Embargo effectively destroyed any chance of the revolution succeeding, so that the US can now sit and laugh at the sideline and say"there's communism for you; it doesn't work". But who cares..

Bjorn, truth is not hidden from Americans, Americans reject the side of history which shows our hand in destruction. After 400 years, native genocide is still not mentioned in schools. But there are bastions of enlightenment; libraries.

In fact, the Polish ambassador to Afghanistan recounted just today that Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan made a chilling remark about how much he detests Brzezinski for plunging the country back to Medieval times during the height of Cold War. I remember being taken aback by a similar comment made by an Afghan refugee, who along with his family fled -- ironically enough -- to Germany after being uprooted from his country by the Soviet-Afghan war. There's a deep-rooted resentment on part of the local populace to the Western powers, and for a good reason.

You don't even have to look much further than the Bond film "The Living Daylights" to see the way in which Jihadists (for lack of a more precise word) with anti- Russian sentiments/ the Taliban were being romanticized by the western powers in the 80's. It's all very Lawrence of Arabia-esque. Now it's all turned around and bitten us in the ass and we're eating our words.

Sadly, that truth is hidden from Americans; how Brzezinski and Carter supported extreme Anti-Russian elements, which became Taliban, how the same "gentlemen" more or less forced The Soviet Union into a reluctant war in Afghanistan (which had the wanted effect of toppling the Soviet Union) Brzezinski said they wanted "to draw the Russian's into the Afghan trap". No, nobody talks of this anymore, just as nobody talks of Cuba before the revolution, the conditions for ordinary Cubans, and how the Trade Embargo effectively destroyed any chance of the revolution succeeding, so that the US can now sit and laugh at the sideline and say"there's communism for you; it doesn't work". But who cares..

Bjorn, truth is not hidden from Americans, Americans reject the side of history which shows our hand in destruction. After 400 years, native genocide is still not mentioned in schools. But there are bastions of enlightenment; libraries.

In fact, the Polish ambassador to Afghanistan recounted just today that Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan made a chilling remark about how much he detests Brzezinski for plunging the country back to Medieval times during the height of Cold War. I remember being taken aback by a similar comment made by an Afghan refugee, who along with his family fled -- ironically enough -- to Germany after being uprooted from his country by the Soviet-Afghan war. There's a deep-rooted resentment on part of the local populace to the Western powers, and for a good reason.

You don't even have to look much further than the Bond film "The Living Daylights" to see the way in which Jihadists (for lack of a more precise word) with anti- Russian sentiments/ the Taliban were being romanticized by the western powers in the 80's. It's all very Lawrence of Arabia-esque. Now it's all turned around and bitten us in the ass and we're eating our words.